The Digital Signal Processor (DSP) has been used in the PC industry to provide computing power to meet multimedia real-time requirements, for example, data compression, expansion (decompression), telephony, sound generation, and other audio processing such as mixing and volume control. The hardware configuration is normally comprised of a DSP, memory for The hardware configuration is normally comprised of a DSP, memory for instruction and data, and hardware devices such as DAC (Digital to Analog Converter, ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), and ports for such exemplary items as telephone line and phone set.
A program that has been created to handle DSP task scheduling and resource management is called SPOX, created by Spectron MicroSystems in Santa Barbara, Calif. Like OS/2, SPOX provides a high-level software interface to the underlying DSP hardware. However, it is directed at creating common interfaces for a variety of single DSP systems. Since its interface is aimed at single DSPs (or master DSPs in a master/slave relationship) and not at homogeneous multiple-DSPs, it lacks sufficient addressing of load balancing and resource management.
VCOS, for Visible Cache Operating System, is a multi-tasking, multiprocessing environment written by AT&T for their DSP 3210 family of parts. It is most readily identified with ISPOS and is intended to be a slave to the host operating system. Since it is not tightly woven into the host, it does not have equal the range of operability provided by IBM's DSP Manager and MultiDSP resource manager. While it has some of the features of the IBM DSP Manager it specifically targets single DSP subsystems. Overall the known DSP supports from Texas Instruments (TI), Motorola, and AT&T don't provide global management requirements for hardware devices.